the call of the mind
by Allerdale
Summary: Shattered by his brother's death, Loki takes a pilgrimage to Africa in hopes of finding a way to resurrect him. There's so much more to righting his wrongs than he ever believed possible. [Tags:] selective mutism, indie, drama, nonlinear narrative, slow burn, family fluff, mosaic fiction; TRIGGER WARNING.
1. In The Forest (D1)

IN THE FOREST of malachite and tiger eye beauty, the ghost's whispers soar above the silver waves of the fog.

 _"O brother let's go down_  
 _Let's go down, come on down_  
 _Come on brother, let's go down_  
 _Down in the river to pray."_

The sojourner entwined in its majesty searches to find its everlasting source, but it comes as much from the north as the south, from the west as the east. Half blind as the fog renders him, he follows its serene streams above the whisps of the forest's soul.

 _"O sinner, let's go down_  
 _Let's go down, come on down_  
 _O sinner, let's go down_  
 _Down in the river to pray."_

But Loki Odinson does not find it. He twists a heavy tungsten ring on his finger.

The raw, sirenic alto carries over all the croaking frogs, pacific winds, chirping crickets, smooth streams, and quiescent birds of the forest until none other exist.

* * *

 _Published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com.  
Thanks to RavenReux for being my second pair of eyes throughout.  
_


	2. What Is Peace? (D1)

WHAT IS PEACE?

Coffee: The near silent trickling and whooshing sounds of cool water transforming into blistering hot; going up little pipes and streaming inside a fist-sized boiler and running free into mini mountains and pointed hills and steep valleys of finely ground, bitter and sweet, coarse and smooth, packed and fluffy grains of coffee beans that grow best in Ethiopia. The enticing smell of a little whiff of heaven carried by evaporating water that rises and fogs over silver painted, outpouring Saeco spouts. Drip, drip, drip drops of brown gold. Then there is the feeling of soft, edible energy washing down ailments from future days passed. The wafting steam of a fresh cup painting a groggy morning face.

He picks up a brimming cup of the purest kind known to man. It is thick, like a syrup, and dark underneath a layer of foam created by precise pressure and timing. Dark all in all, just like he understands. No sugar, no milk, no flavors. Just coffee in its flawless African purity. It sifts free between shivering jaws, falling into minuscule spaces between cracked teeth, nestling underneath a bitten and bruised tongue, down down down a crimson sodden throat. A bow tie of foam stains his greedy, cut lips. Steam kisses a face of mourning death. An almost chocolate-like aftertaste temporarily obliterates the rising sour taste from bruised intestines.

Ferrero Rocher: The waxy, strong, and smooth gold and brown paper slipping between fingers. The crinkling and crackling that unfolds the wonder of taste buds. The seconds of thrill and craving as it starts melting between fingers. First, the milky chocolate and golden roasted nuts. They melt into a pool of what sunshine and moonbeams would taste like. Bite into the crisp wafer slowly. It crumbles like summer sand in dusk wind. Taste, but take not another bite, not until the silky chocolate inside unclothes the Mother of Pearl. Let it linger. Close eyes. Lean back. Chew little. Swallow a pinch of innocent euphoria at a time. Nothing but the arresting burst of a million and two flavors packed into a million and two taste buds exists in that little eternity.

Broken fingers reach for one…hope for at least one. He can set his purple and black and blue tongue on fire for all the right reasons.

Death: The feeling of falling and not being afraid, of jumping knowing you can fly. It is laying down without worrying about how or why to rise again; reaching out to the deepest darkness trusting whatever hands of demons or angels you brush against. It is the serene call of the end of your soul guiding you closer, closer, and closer still to the fading line between alive and dead. The orgastic moments of lingering in limbo with a special mark in chest that is neither evil or good and that neither expects nor desires evil or good. It does not matter if life has been fulfilled – that was all a beautiful lie anyways. Scars are medallions, perfections flaws.

But even limbo must make decisions. To cut the shifting thread? To snuff out the marred lungs? To silence the still vocal chords forever? Or to show _mercy_?

Loki swallows the last fiery gulps of his coffee, relishes one more golden treat. Then he falls backwards.

Onto icy wood. Onto the inanimate between shards of glass and broken chairs and their splinters and a pool of blackened blood. Into silence forever, whether or not it be given to him today.

See, the shadow prince doesn't want mercy. He wants peace from the army of ghosts and golems that rise from the marrow of his decaying bones, that surface when he catches but a clue that he, _the_ Sinner of Old, still breathes.

How did he get here? It started with an ocean without water.

* * *

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_


	3. The Queen of Asgard (D1)

THE QUEEN OF ASGARD leaves her shining golden throne. She takes all the exhausting steps one by one until her tan stilettoes touch leveled ground. The remaining councilmen line up behind her to take their exit after their youthful Queen.

"Norns keep the Queen," the regal guards opening the door for her say at once.

"Aye," a chorus of councilmen roar. They and the guards tap their hearts with gentle fists. She nods with all the respect and appreciation in the world towards them all.

It is only once she has passed into the hall of the royal rooms that she releases her vivid illusion. She cups her pounding head, rubs exhausted eyes, massages strained cheeks from all the bright smiles.

Her pale hands reach for the door. Tried, dry eyes meet the sight of her King in deep sleep. That is expected, but what is not is the little body curled into a ball between his still arm and countless fur blankets.

"Loki?" she asks, which comes out somewhere between a laugh and a worried cry. She and her mustard green dress with a golden waterfall underskirt and starlight-jeweled and lace bolero kneel next to the humble King's bed.

Her youngest unfolds, but he remains underneath the screen of regenerating Seidr. The three-hundred-year-old's baby blue eyes look a thousand years older when they finally meet hers. She reaches out to wipe away the dried tears on his fevered cheeks.

"When will he wake up, Momma?"

Frigga combs back wild tendrils of midnight hair and kisses his pasty ivory forehead. "Soon, darling. You know he would never leave the apples of his eye behind."

But the child shakes his head, eyes darting to but not quite settling on the greatest guardian of the galaxy. "I want him back. Now."

And so the temporarily reigning Queen takes him up into her immortal arms. She hums and runs her fingers through his hair until the stress in his young face melts away. The pad of her thumb strokes his hollow cheek as he nestles into her nest of honey-colored curls.

"Do not fear, my love. Rest."

The little god says nothing. He closes his aching, blood-shot eyes; breathes in the smell of orchids in her clothes and clay pottery embedded in her hands of mild stone.

Queen Frigga takes a seat next to her husband's bed, holding her dozing youngest close to her heart. She wipes away drops of drool from the corners of his little open mouth when they come, and holds his small hands up to her lips when bad dreams borne from the worries of a sick father startle him.

"Rest, my loves. I'll get my turn," she whispers to her worlds.

* * *

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End of Dossier One. To be continued. . ._


	4. It Is Manhattan, New York (D2)

IT IS MANHATTAN, NEW YORK.

New yellow cabs crawl about the lazy streets of winter. Reconstructed sky-scraping buildings stretch even higher towards the dirty skies.

 _The sound of bells and drums and bass thud in Loki's ears, blasting from the speakers bejeweled in red and green to flashing neon clubs at every corner. The flashy, dominant hue and modest, quaint one bathe the grey cement slushed over with soiled snow, decorate the lavish street lamps in haughty flamboyance, tender reminders of quiet nature, or visceral riches when tied together as bows. Passersby walk to the rhythm of fervent cheer in the crisp winter air._

 _"It's Christmastime, there's no need to be afraid.  
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade."_

Lightning cracks centimeters away from Loki's ducking head. The boom of angry thunder makes him run faster and faster, half jumping and half limping. His lungs fill with the rustic smell of snow and blood.

He slips on slush, falling face-first into an alley. He scrambles to get up, but he's gasping, heaving, crying, trembling, and throwing up adrenaline. His lungs burn to the point that he mistakes the sight of his breath mixing with cold hair as smoke. Loki forces himself up onto his knees. He fumbles for his hilt, grabs the tip of his dagger, ignores the empty spot that comes before it.

 _"But say a prayer. Pray for the other ones._ _  
_ _At Christmastime, it's hard, but while you're having fun—"_

Nails scrape his skull and pull out strings of crow-black hair until he's back on his feet not another minute later. He kicks Aesir knees that don't tumble, punches the impeccable mirrors of Odin Allfather's eyes. But the Ice Prince was never stronger than the Golden Prince.

Thor tosses him with full force against the brick wall of the alley. His lungs rattle like a plate of jelly as he slides down with a layer of dislodged bricks.

"You vile pest! You demon!" Thor snatches him up again, up to his face, crushing his windpipe, and yells as loud as the thunder in the grey skies rumbles. "How much sorrow will you cause me? When will you stop wearing the face of my brother?"

He's slammed over and over into the stone ground until a spot big enough to be his shallow grave gives way. The berserker's shadow looms over his broken body. Loki finds he can't breathe, can't think, can't live under its agonizing oppression.

"Get up!" He jumps at the poison in the voice and Mjölnir's ready lightning cracking. "Get up and fight, devil."

It is with aching perseverance that his broken body chooses to help him rise. Loki meets the blue flames in his eyes. His bleeding, swollen fingers close against the dagger in his hilt. Mjölnir's full power swings at his face first.

 _"There's a world outside your window,_  
 _And it's a world of dread and fear."_

He flies into the snow-covered asphalt in the street, scrambles back onto his swaying feet. Pedestrians and automobiles screech at the sight of a true fight-to-death. Thor marches closer, dreaming of he who pretends to be his deceased brother's blood on his hands.

 _"_ _Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears._ _"_

Thor's booming cries fill the foggy streets of New York. Loki's dagger falling away as he flings himself to the ground to dodge a fatal blow fills it even more. The golden Avenger crushes him below his feet - his broken knee couldn't lift him up in time - and raises Mjölnir.

Loki frantically snatches a generous shard of broken windshield glass a meager stretch away from his fingers. It is out of instinct that he closes his eyes, turns away, and plunges it into the chilled, shocked air as Mjölnir's fires burn an ear and strands of his midnight tresses to crisps.

 _"And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom. Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!"_

His eyes open in morbid curiosity. Thor's close in wallowing pain.

The Golden Prince falls backwards, stuck in time, looking at the piece of windshield that had pierced his heart after his emptying eyes met his killer's for but a moment. He blinks before his face settles into hardened cement. He falls with a thud that shakes the world.

"Thor!" Loki screams at the top of his battered lungs. Even louder than the Midgardians surrounding the scene. He shoots up, forcing a crooked back, swollen fingers, broken bones, and useless knees to hold him up. Golden blood mingling with microscopic shards of glass soaks through the flimsy grey-blue Midgardian shirt the Aesir had put on that glum but cheerful morning, which the not-Aesir scrambles to congeal. He pushes down with all his cut fingers. His own blood drips from his lips in thick, uneven drops.

 _"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime._  
 _The greatest gift they'll get this year is life."_

Webs of lightning shutter around Mjölnir's hilt like a short circuit only to shoot back down into the sodden asphalt. Then the sound of metal wind, a white noise to those who don't know any better, hushes.

There is no God of Thunder anymore. The sun of the shadow is gone, forever.

The survivor lets go. His feral scream splits the streets of New York into two, breaks windows as far as five miles away, fries electricity wires across the nation. A different light goes out in baby blues as he watches pooling golden blood runoff from his palms, and drip down his arms in elegant swirls. They are flourished signatures from the galaxy, honoring the unlikely winner.

Loki forgets how to breathe, about the stone in his pocket worth all the Nine Realms, how to move, even as a woman bolts through the crowd towards them.

 _"Do they know it's Christmastime at all?"_

All he can think about is that the music sounds so, so sad.

* * *

 _Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com.  
Thanks to RavenReux for being my second pair of eyes throughout._


	5. Loki's Tattered Boots (D2)

LOKI'S TATTERED BOOTS touch down on the Rainbow Bridge after what feels like a lifetime. The sight of his childhood home doesn't have the chance to assault him, for Thor's eyes stay transfixed on him and before him, unapologetically broken and angry and altogether calloused at once.

The younger makes a contest of the stare. Not even the healing hum of the bridge or the sputtering at the end where the Bifrost had once been or the rushing quiet of the Void just steps away or Hugin and Munin's soaring caws or Einherjar marching closer break their game apart.

The younger, however, has one disadvantage. The muzzle pokes a little too deep into his clenching jaw and grating teeth. He blinks first, and then becomes the first to let go of the Tesseract as well.

Thor takes one more moment to stare. His detached gaze moves to the approaching guards. His face drops into an empty slate.

"You walk this alone."

As the chained younger watches the Golden Prince walk ahead to where Allfather commands the guards to stop, Loki remembers the Bifrost. He had walked with Thor always, through thick and thin, and what a fool he was for that. Why did he ever kiss all of their feet? Why did he ever wish to belong?

What a fool he was, but that doesn't mean he will be the fool again. He raises his muzzled chin, holds his sore shoulders high, and takes the first proud step. This is not his walk of shame; this is him breaking free forever from his cocoon.

Let them see the black butterfly with teeth of hounds. Let them see the spider webs made of metal he can weave. Let them _all_ see the child inside him has grown into a man that knows all and knows how to use his know all.

He stops three feet before the stone-cold Allfather. Though the guardian of Old's poker face remains firm, the steps back that the guards take make him smile. It rips his skin and thin threads of blood drip from the muzzle made for sorcerers like him.

Odin does not blink at that either.

Then another breaks through the crowd. The swollen, strained eyes of his mother fall on him.

"Loki," she says, and only she can make his name sound like the grandest of treasures as well as the blackest curse. He clutches his chains as he meets her eyes. It takes all his control to keep the child inside him drowned.

The mother spins to Odin. "This is not the proper way to do this." She grabs his arm, hissing: "Let me take care of this."

* * *

 _Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com  
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	6. They Say the True Lost Generation (D2)

THEY SAY THE TRUE LOST GENERATION was the African Americans. "They" implies the vast majority who are not disillusioned with "the white man's burdens" of spreading religions they don't quite believe in and fighting in world wars as if the world involved America, Great Britain, and Europe alone and planting civilizations they just had to plant because the dark-skinned animals couldn't of course, because _they_ , naturally,don't see past their white importance.

 _Or_ , she thinks aloud, _perhaps I should say they don't see anyone else's pangs of pain_. _Theatre, theater_ , she mumbles as she bashes coffee beans in a small orange clay pot, _same thing._

Back in time when people were treated like machines to be owned and animals to be tamed, privileged folk with lighter skins broke apart families in Africa _like them diamond hunters chip off gems in them caves._ Women and girls became the bread makers; men and boys the heavy takers. They were taught to be tools of all trades in gender respected ways.

But you shouldn't have been surprised if you heard a black maid's skin tearing apart and chunks of muscles leaving her body as metal claws rained down on her back _'cause she didn't hit the nails in straight or mixed the bricks too watery so they weren't dryin' on time_.

They say them African Americans never quite learned English _(and them poor devils were too dark to be white)_ , so when they ran away into freedom, they found even more oppression:

Unemployment. Dismay. More unemployment. Often imprisonment based on false charges.

So the crafty ones stole ships back to the land of their forefathers and mothers to find the harshest of oppressions awaiting. _They had American accents, didn't speak their ancestor tongue…most were too white._

Thus, the generations spun in the web of slave culture did not look enough like Americans and knew not enough to grow old as one in the land of their ancestors. Those strong-willed enough became wanderers over the earth, finding shelter and community often in the fringes of civilization. Those who weren't returned to the sweet familiarity of chains or chose to bite the dust.

She sighs as she drops in teaspoons of freshly ground coffee into a tall jar of cool water.

As he watches the pure black charcoals pulse into flaming embers inside a _kintsukuroi_ metal bowl, Loki does not wonder which of the three fates will be his.

That spark in Ebele's misty eyes tells him she doesn't wonder either.

* * *

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End of Dossier Two. To be continued. . ._


	7. Their Governess (D3)

THEIR GOVERNESS says Loki shouldn't ask that question.

"Why not? Our article doesn't say what the Giants did."

The warmth in her eyes of surreal wheat meadows ignites into a whole field of fire. "Darling princeling, you have not experienced the incomparable monstrosity of the Jotnar."

"Well have you?" Seated next to him with a bored-as-death look, Thor punches his shoulder. "Ow!"

"Shut up already. I have training to finish."

A 400-year-old Loki flattens out the last phase of his curly black tresses. "I just want to know."

Thor shoves his own wavy blond locks behind his ears as he flicks a pencil between his fingers. "Volstagg's told us why. Why do you need to know again?"

"Volstagg's also told us that the Norns drink our blood on nights we don't dream."

Thor tosses shade at him. "That is because they do, _cow_. I proved it."

Loki nearly punches his arm. "How many times do I need to tell you _I_ pricked your finger?"

"Did not! You were sound asleep."

"By _illusion_!"

Their governess snaps both of their hands with her ruler. "Quiet down, both of you. Your little brother wishes to have the legend explained, Thor, so I shall explain. All the better that you know for your assignment, no?"

Little Loki stares with wide, expectant eyes. Little Thor grumbles in his throat and crosses pouting arms.

"The Frost Giants used an Infinity Stone to wreak havoc on Midgard. _Why?_ you may ask, and why is because they are vile creatures. They seek nothing but their own gain and spilled blood. If it were not for Bor the Great—may endless joy bless him—we would all be nothing more than playthings to those monsters of ice.

"You have never laid eyes upon one, Loki darling, but when you do, you will understand how much truth is in what I speak."

The younger nibbles on his lip until he gains the courage to voice his curiosity again. He interrupts her explaining their assignment: "Wait." Thor face-palms. "Could you just explain what one looks like?"

Her porcelain lips curl into a foreboding, twisted grin while endless patience flows through the young skin of her face.

"How about I tell you the story of the wretched King Laufey's Queen?" She closes her teaching book and leans closer to the pair of roused princes before her. "They say King Laufey contrived a plot with the unsuspecting crowned Prince of the Dark Elves. The prince was told to bury mementos of the Giants, including a chest hiding the runt of Laufey itself. In exchange, the Dark Elves learned the powers of the Casket of Ancient Winters. Then, he haggled a trading deal with us Aesir: he would forfeit the Casket and cease terrorizing Midgard if the men cleared away the mess of the Elves.

"The Aesir found the dreaded infant drowned in black snow—you will learn of it next decade—and Laufey ruled the Aesir responsible. Thus, the war between the Giants and Aesir began. Queen Farbuti, a world bender, courted revenge for her infant, but her own anger warped her skills; the Void she created to destroy Asgard consumed her instead. Now, she traps the ankles of young princes of Elves and Aesir when they swim to avenge her little beast."

For a moment, the room is too stifled to move, but in time Thor raises a timid hand. "Yes, darling?"

"But-but he already died…and it wasn't us who killed it. Why does she still want to kill us?"

"Because, my princeling, her kind has always wanted to kill, but now her black spirit has an excuse. Monsters are killers without pardon; monsters is what the Jotnar are. _Never_ forget that."

* * *

 _Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com.  
_ _Thanks to RavenReux for being my second pair of eyes throughout._


	8. I Could Have Done It (D3)

"I COULD HAVE DONE IT, father! I could have done it! For you, for all of us," pleads a boy with a broken heart to a father with an illusion of a whole one.

There, amidst the roar of a broken Rainbow Bridge, there is too much to say and too little time. Centuries of social oppression have painted his youngest's face with the look of someone who knows he's hunted for, but now it is different. Now it is heavier. Once upon a time he sensed it, felt the rims of a cage around him; now he knows the truth of the cage.

And so behind those eyes he thrashes and writhes and screams. Why can the father define that stone-like, detached look contradicted by affection-starved eyes now of all times, and how is it that he can see the soul ripping itself apart between the barbed rims of a metal cage when he did not before?

Because his youngest hangs from Gungnir, peering up with nearly dripping eyes in which his mammoth struggle stirs behind. _One more lie, father, one more,_ is the bargain for his son's soul to survive, but it is lies of the past that destroyed eyes that were once displeased by shadows, lips that were once ready to tell the truth, and a heart that was once young and free.

Indeed, it was lies that ravished the conscience of his soul. There was a time it did not see a potential predator in every other soul it met.

"No, Loki," Allfather says. _You misunderstood._

Odin had seen countless deaths unravel before his eye, but this one…this one he knows will go to his grave.

His son's soul spills apart against the barbs the cage, but baby blues build a wall. Self-defense? No, surrender. Lips melt and harden into a straight line of cement. Face bleeds off all signs of life. As if the mortifying bloom of death was not enough shock, colorless fingers release Gungnir.

Thor shouts and reaches for his brother while the Allfather can do nothing but agonize. He feels the stretching thread between him and the child of his heart strain until it snaps and leaves him bleeding. The black nothingness of the Void rips the broken thread and his child away. It sucks away half of the father's heart too when it closes it's gaping mouth forever.

"No," Odin whispers. He can't remember what caressing the smooth blue skin underneath an illusion of milky perfection felt like, nor the pure smile of the younger lost in a book of adventure, nor the childish beauty of his mischief that always kept him on his toes.

What lies behind the blackness? He knows. What remains of the younger screams underneath the torrents of an ocean without water.

* * *

 _Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com  
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	9. The Woman Is Jane (D3)

THE WOMAN IS JANE.

She swallows the slippery cement underneath her new Christmas shoes. Godspeed she runs, for the monstrous clouds above she knows are her lover's.

"Excuse me…sorry!" She pushes left and right through a congealing pool of humans.

Nothing separates them, not her shoving or her yelling. Nothing that is but a scream that sounds like ten thousand dying demons.

The concrete below their feet shatters like thin glass, and skyscrapers tip and rock in place. Electricity wires snap and crackle and fall. A gust of a shockwave tips those who still stand off their feet.

But there is silence after. A silence that isn't right. As Jane scrambles back onto her feet, she peers up at the clouds only to find that they are breaking apart.

"Thor," she whispers. She flings herself between the rising crowds until she finds him in the centre of the road. A shadow thing floats over him, half cradling and half hiding behind his stillness.

"Thor?" she asks the silent wind, but even Mjölnir does not rouse at her wielder's name. Then is when she sees the pool of blood surrounding her love, the broken grits of asphalt drinking in his spilled life. "Thor!" she screams as if she could call him back from the dead if she beckoned loud enough.

She wilts at his side, sees the piece of windshield severing his heart, meets the broken eyes of the shadow.

" _Loki_ ," she growls.

How he mocks Thor's death. With how much fervor he pretends to mourn. How _damn_ good of an actor he is, that he pretended to die to come back to kill.

Red mist is all she can see. In a blink, she tackles the devil to the ground. Her fingers rip his hair and nails claw his face and knees crush his bones as she shatters into smithereens and drives all her brokenness into the monster that pretends he deserves it.

* * *

 _Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com  
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	10. Cool Matte (D3)

COOL MATTE.  
Everlasting smooth.  
The smell of dust mites after rain.

Scrawling arrows of violet trace winds of the Pacific. Straight, straight, straight, curve down, forward, forward, forward. Straight, straight, straight, curve upwards, forward, forward, forward and swirl.

North Equatorial current.  
North Pacific current.  
Alaskan current.

Follow the green arrows, down, down, down. There's a patch, a little button of pistachio and bumblebee and ochre. Japan: Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, it says–those onyx letters.

Cup the Pacific Ocean and turn the sphere. Follow Japan. Trace China with the ivory stub of nail, feel the rise of mountains under skin of ice as fern and dandelion gives way to shades of almond to nude to white. Trace, trace, trace across the exquisite jewel of electric canary and quiet olive—India.

Let the violet arrows guide again. Run a finger along a triangular current, above the arrows of the summer monsoon drifts. Up, up, up, curve, down, down, down.

Feel the heat spilling into your lungs. Smell the saffron dirt caking your throat with scales. Taste the purest land on Earth.

Ethiopia.

The prince taps on the ruby star: Addis Ababa. Watery eyes find a stray "A." He follows it backward to find a "C," then "I," "R," "F," "A."

Africa.

Metal chimes inside as he taps the plastic matte. The land embedded in the sphere of Midgard (that he cups with his shrinking swollen fingers) is bigger than one spread hand. Cedar desserts and flaxen flatlands and pine-green sleeping forests wash into one blurred muddy color behind the pools in his eyes that then grows into a greedy mouth that swallows his probing finger.

He lays his hand over the land he can't look at a moment longer. His barely beating heart wants to burn all of it up with its own boiling blood as much as it wants to trickle free underneath its toasty wings made of earth forever.

Africa. It sounds so, so sad.

* * *

 _Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com  
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	11. Loki Found the Voice (D3)

LOKI FOUND THE VOICE. Though he had to jump across streams rippling with chilly moonlight, had to climb through the thickest parts of the sentient forest with gusts beating brutally against his every step, had to crawl through a dust storm just last night—though he didn't swim no matter the time it could have saved—he traced its ethereal keeper.

And there the keeper is. The constant smooth, vibrant whisper of the forest is a breathing being who at this moment kneels beside a bush of blueberries. A basket of golden flax, overflowing with hybrid berries of all types, rests near her colosseum knees. Her fingers stop reaching towards a bundle of ripe strawberries underneath the blueberry bush, then her underskirts shift as she turns towards the curious eyes intruding upon her.

Loki doesn't think he's ever seen such a creature. Half elf, half fairy...perhaps all angel. All he knows is that the pearls that are her hair and the amethyst that is her small lips and the lace-like dress that looks more like it was sewn with sunlight….

"Hello," he whispers though he doesn't mean to. He downs the anxiety from his throat in an instant and speaks again in his most noble tone. "My deepest apologies for the intrusion. I did not wish to frighten you. It's just that I have been hearing your extraordinary melody, and wished to find you to…thank you I suppose. Never have I heard a voice like yours."

The singer's lavender irises shift like a crosshatch pattern, like a million galaxies spinning at their own rate, as if he can see her whirling mind testing the sincerity of his words.

"Hello," she whispers after her mind stills, then she rises to her feet. Before the last consonant leaves her lips, every pebble and broken leaf and drop of water shutters, enough to tip the prince off his feet.

What was that of?

Dread?  
Hope?  
Pleasure?  
Agony?

He doesn't have time to ponder or ask, for her hand reaches out to him, and he freezes in splendor as he watches sun beams bounce inside her arms made of diamonds.

What is _-he-_ ?

* * *

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End of Dossier Three. To be continued. . ._


	12. If There is Anything That Scares (D4)

IF THERE IS ANYTHING THAT SCARES LOKI WITLESS, it is by far his mother's wrath.

Mother or not-mother, she sure has always acted like one...not that he experienced her fury often when a child, but when he did it always left a near traumatic memory.

Now is no exception, especially without his muzzle. Even the blankets and curtains and carpet fibers pick up into the jaws of the dust devil her enraged march conjures around him.

She's more terrifying than the Allfather's worst scowl. Loki's as careful as ever to keep his tongue tied.

"Do you have any idea what you put us through?" her razor voice bellows around the brick and mortar room, making Loki wince ever so slightly; "What worry and pain you have caused your _family_? Do you?"

His unsteady fingers latch onto his chains, and behind his black curtains he bites down on his colorless lips till he feels the pulse that comes before blood gushes free.

"Answer my question," she booms as she bolts to his side like a rolling ocean wave about to take him under.

His misty gaze trails up as far as her neck. (Frost Giants can only handle being burned so many times.)

"I should ask the same of you, your highness."

 _Your highness._ Sizzling tension sets the room ablaze with the formality. Even he is taken aback by the cool detachment in his voice.

Her palm blasts his cheek before he can blink, and her fingers lock down and pull and yank and trap his hair his face his heart until he has to look into the brimming inferno burning in her eyes while gasping and tearing up at the stinging agony on his skin and soul.

She shakes him and holds him and screams at him and loves him so much in her anger that he's sent into utter panic at her outrage.

"Look at me and tell me I have never loved you. Tell me it wasn't my breasts that nursed you and my lips that kissed every scrape and my feet that ran into the waters to find you and my _damn_ tongue that named you." She crushes his jaw so earnestly with her claws and tears him off his feet until her nose touches his and her fiery mother eyes are all he can see. His mortified soul leaks out of surreal baby blues.

"Tell me," she screams, which sets his ears ringing and lungs shriveling and everything inside him rattling.

His tongue slips.

* * *

 _Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com.  
Thanks to RavenReux for being my second pair of eyes throughout._


	13. The Dirt Below (D4)

THE DIRT BELOW his feet rises up into stifled, blistering lazy winds. Blanched brown grains stick to his sweat-sheened forehead, kiss the corners of chapped lips, travel into crude nostrils.

Around him tents and courts of all spectrums beckon. Women covered from the top of their messy hairs to the tip of their dust-caked toes tromp by with bags of grain over their square shoulders and baskets of ever-ripe potatoes and squash impeccably balanced on their heads. Children as tall as trees but as lean as feathers make music with shimmering pots and pans over his shoulders. They play to the beat of oppressed but simple life.

One bronze man takes his arm. "Water, sir," he says in broken English, "$1 for gallon. Or give ice; pound for $3."

The raw sun melts Loki more and more. "Sorry," he breathes, but the sound of an exhausted Jeep overstuffed with crates of rattling empty glass bottles drowns him out. He treks onward, relieved, and draws his shoulder bag as close to his body as he can. He lets the rays of the red sun steal his presence.

Brutal. Steadfast. Reliable. Strong like Hel.  
Yes, that was his Sun.  
That is this sun too.

"Run faster," shout children he almost walks right into. He recovers from his daze and halts to watch them scramble after loose roosters behind the curtain of white light the sun stamped his eyes with.

A chorus of voices melt into one, each calling their sales of brand new tires and savoury melons and royal-as-can-be mattresses and thick rice and picturesque handmade hats and rich carrots and lace draperies. All in a small sliver of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The Demi-God drops against a pallid brick wall to cool and to rest.

A woman leans against the door frame that stands wide open next to him.

"I'm afraid shade doesn't help much."

His blurry gaze fixes on her. A black summer dress crowns the earth around her pillar legs. Thick dreadlocks coloured with a faded crimson clay drape over her solid shoulders. A thin layer of the same clay smooths the tamed wild of her ancient hazel eyes and somber lips, over her chest and perfecting each beautiful blemish of her arms.

She is not a doll face, but an old young one that carries the wrinkles of hardship under faded crimson. No heart-stopping eyes, but arresting ones of an aged soul. Her lips are not ones to make one hunger for a kiss, but ones that would crawl under epidermis and bleed deeper and deeper until her mystery is yours.

Handsome is what she is.

Africa, says her body, but the twinkles inside her eyes carry another homeland that he cannot place. He wonders if he could have if he did not know the tongue of Allspeak; if he could hear her accent as a true stranger.

She rises with the ghost of a smile haunting her face. "Come into my shop. You look of death. I will make you iced coffee."

* * *

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_


	14. The Winds of Svartalfheim (D4)

THE WINDS OF SVARTALFHEIM fly above the ashened hills and dance along the shallow valleys. They cradle crumbling grey sands in their flowing, satin arms across sprinkles and stains of scarlet. Though they echo the life left in sedate howls across a world that hasn't had colour for millennia, they dare not so much as whisper across the crumpled body that colours it red.

This sand that has seen the worst of destruction (perhaps the worst of battles and perchance the worst of silence) instead touches through tousled black hair with its suavest grains of sand; caresses hallow, albumen cheeks; lays down fragments of brittle leaves and long-dead petals on the chest of the one that's giving his life to it.

Svartalfheim winds remember the acid: residue of Elven blades perfected by a wash in black snow. It watches helpless as it gnaws deeper into the death-blue body that has so far been kept warm by the layers and layers of grunge and green.

He trembles and breathes in the heat from the limp sun overhead, but it isn't ever enough. The winds remember that, too. Black snow is a cold, burning death, and an illegal one at that.

But everyone knows elves are not keen about rules.

Across the savage realm, another pair of feet touch down. The winds soar towards the unexpected guest, but it finds her untouchable. The sceptre she clutches is familiar too. She glides towards the trove in a rhythm it recalls.

This one, it hears her think, was destined for her finest mountains of the dead, so said by the Norns.

She trods against the wind without so much as stumbling once. When she finds him, she kneels next to him with her nails ready to scoop him out of his shell, but when she sweeps away the irritating grains of sand clutching onto the sides of his damp neck, she finds a flickering heartbeat.

Hela, Queen of the Dead, pauses.  
She cannot harvest a soul that's still gripping so tight.

She shoves a skeletal finger into his wound, and it tingles and bites as the black snow always has, which begs the question: why is he still alive? The parasite crackles and pops and clutches and crawls and eats away layers of skin and muscle and bone, but the longer she watches, the higher she sees his chest rise.

This one _is_ different, hears the wind from she.  
"Almost as stubborn as—"

* * *

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	15. Loki Always Knew (D4)

LOKI ALWAYS KNEW Infinity Stones were beautiful. But holdingone in the steel protection of an Infinity Gauntlet is an entirely different story.

They are _living_ things. They feel like an overbearing emotion you cannot place, like phantoms pressing against your back and chest until you feel like you can barely breathe.

They are a presence in and of themselves, that slip into the back of your shirt and climb up under with tenacious fingers that touch so softly that you can feel your skin crawl at the paradox. And if you listen close enough, a susurrus, rocky voice beckons to touch, to find the mysteries it hides, but be careful. He has to fight his fingers that are not protected—has to keep himself from tapping free what feels like a soul held inside it.

Or maybe that is because this stone was once encased in the Casket of Ancient Winters. Maybe he is a little too biased.

"What next?" he whispers to himself in the clean shadows of Asgard's shining Vault.

The empty spot between the place where the Casket's stone would fit and where the Aether's ruby one hums tells him. He needs the sceptre's stone, and he knows who's alive because of it.

* * *

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	16. Thor, Do You Remember (D4)

"THOR, DO YOU REMEMBER when I was four centuries and some?"

His brother kicks himself away from the wall, plopping a generous slice of melon in his mouth, then stacks a whole heap of fresh banana drowned in cherry syrup on his plate. He leaves Loki's snacking tray half empty.

"You mean that infuriating age when you spawned storms over my head? 'Accidental' you would always say."

The younger prince's eyes roll and swoop down to focus on one particular book from the mound about him. His slender fingers pick it up, plant it over the others, and touch through the edges until an animated page beaming the history of one urban legend faces him. "No, you fool," he whispers, "That one time I almost drowned."

Thor's too-bright grin softens into something close to a worried cringe. He swallows too big of pieces and moves towards Loki's bed. "I remember, yes. Why has it come to mind?"

For a few moments Thor comes to believe Loki won't say a word more. That page. Thor stares as nerves build in his gut…as the remaining colour—the life—in his brother's face drips off his chin. He transforms into a man with no past, present, or future in but a moment. His disappearing soul is more terrifying than any ghost.

"Loki? What are you looking at like that?" Then he swears he sees the slender fingers around the book tremble, but nothing else does. "Loki?"

"You promise to listen? Nothing but listen?" comes his voice from thin, drawn lips that barely move.

Thor can't help a slight chuckle. "Norns, brother, aren't you in a mood? You should eat more nuts and yogurt like Madame Helena suggests."

The shadows underneath baby blue eyes seem to shimmer with the darkness that crosses Loki's face. His fingers close so tightly around the lace edges of the book that the sound of the cover's dense matte snapping accentuates the impatient click Loki _always_ does with his tongue when ticked at the deepest level. "Listen, or get out of my damned room."

It is how the syllables pour out of his lips as a precise, crafted warning somewhere between a calm, roaring fire and a sirenic, wicked purr that freezes the humour in Thor's manners. He leaves his plate on a chair and steals a seat outside of Loki's nest of books.

"Brother, what is wrong?"

But Loki answers the question he heard his version of Thor ask. "Do you ever think Farbauti is real?"

"Come again?"

A twitchy, slim finger stabs the living page and pale hands shove the legend up to his nose. "Queen Farbauti, deaf one."

Thor watches the pages reenact the essence of the dreaded Queen. Glittery blue ink draws howling winds of Jotunheim, which send her shredded dress flying into the ghastly shadows of the dead realm. Forever embedded is her silent screaming at the top of her crazed lungs. Forever mortifying is the broken rhythm she stomps in—her march that crushes princes below her feet. He knows the next page...with how much fervor she drowns a prince of Alfheim.

Thor snatches the book and snaps it closed. "The tale is nothing more than that: a tale. It is also a misleading one. Remember? There was a runt of Laufey, but it died in Father's war with the Giants just as many in Jotunheim did. Father dismissed Lady Genevieve for sharing this senseless legend with us. And I can hear very well but I cannot say _you_ are well." His palm clasps the tender spot on Loki's neck, the one that demolishes his walls and takes him into the light no matter how high they may rise or how deeply Loki crushes himself between them...if only for a moment. "Now tell me what's wrong."

* * *

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	17. December 25th (D4)

DECEMBER 25TH.

A chaotic vortex of permanent red marker and slashes of running blue gel pen and patches of smudged green dry erase marker tattoo that little square on a whole farm of them. That one alone is clawed around and torn up with paper curling in on itself all about it and tear soaked spots litter it and fire stains gun it down. It is beaten to a wrinkled pulp with fists that bled when dealing it blows.

December 25th.  
It stares at him even as disfigured as it is.  
It mocks, it laughs, it calls his bluff every single second lest he forget who is alive and who is dead.

December 25th.  
It asks two momentous questions with the smuggest of smiles:  
Does it count as self defense when you always wanted your brother dead?  
What more do you think _can't_ destroy me?

December 25th.  
The date wolfs down the small studio room that takes up precious Midgardian soil. It grows into an abominable mutation no matter how Loki screams and lashes at it—the hundreds of December 25ths littering the floor that is.

Or do they?  
Nightmares are reality; reality nightmares.

He drops to his knees to pour out the endless torrents of agony inside him only to find that nothing comes because that's how vile of a demon he is. So instead, he curls into a ball and unleashes volts of anger that climb the four black walls like veins of electricity.

(If only it was just electricity.)

Because that's what monsters do. They're angry and they kill perfection in their warped wrath, which is what he knows he has done yet again when he hears the tell-tale roar of flames latching onto things it can burn.

December 25th's dawn peeks through the windows. The quiet lullaby of glittering, charring fire marks the one year anniversary of him questioning why a monster still breathes when a perfect soul died.

He meets the eyes of his worst foe tacked up against the wall, whose edges curl to escape the heat below. He can't destroy it, that he has always known, but he can appease it...at least for a little while.

It is the bargain they always settle on.

So, Loki's steel-stiff fingers fish the bloodied razor out of his pocket and bring it up to his throat.  
Snaps the vocal chords that prove he is still stealing time.

The devils will mend in four month's time, and he will snap them apart again for the little peace he can bargain for. Tonight, he wants to be one with the ashes below.

Loki doesn't care for the screams set free from the stories above and below. He closes his eyes after his foe seals the bargain by falling into the flames.

The fire doesn't touch him, never has touched its creator, but Loki prays that somehow it would so he could burn.

So he could feel again and so he could finally cease living on empty time.

That is the honest truth since December 25th, 2016.

* * *

 _Give indie some love. Leave a review!  
End of Dossier Four. To be continued. . ._


	18. There is a Song (D5)

THERE IS A SONG.

It's winding around his head like savage strands of amber tape.  
It's tearing though all his defences like a two-edged sword.  
It's burning together the cracks inside his soul like hot glue to broken clay.  
It's stomping over all his bruises, making them paper and leather at once.  
It's battering all the senses he still has.

It is a broken record he doesn't want to stop, but that he wants to obliterate.

" _There's a world outside your window,  
_ _And it's a world of dread and fear,  
_ _Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears."_

Loki's eyes shoot open to his room of ashes, but instead of seeing the fine grains of his destruction, he sees Odin at his side; instead of feeling the enormous pangs and stinging from the dripping wound of his neck, he feels...quiet.

"I will teach you a trick, my boy. Something to soothe the distance between you and your mother. Something that I use quite often myself. Take this." His bloodless fingers remember closing around the slippery coolness of his mother's pearl necklace. It dangled from his hand down to the tip of his small shoes that day...when his Allfather still had chamomile hair. "Now close your eyes and find her essence in the necklace."

His glassy eyes sting now just as they did then from how hard he held them closed. "There is clay. Sunshine. Silk."

"Well done, but search for more."

"What more?"

"Feel each bead. Remember how she wears them. Remember the whisper of her voice the second before you would fall asleep."

Loki remembers.

The soft gloss of the ones as big as his thumb.  
The tickles of the small, dangling ones.  
The light bending inside the salt-sized crystals of diamonds.  
The weight of the clay, sunshine, and silk sheathed inside each bead.

"There," his father whispers, "Take everything you found and search the threads for her."

 _Threads?_

He did not have to say it out loud for Odin to hear. "There are threads of time, element, fate, and matter. Magic, my son, is just manipulating them one way or another."

It took two dozen tries for him to feel the threads.

It took a dozen more to find Frigga in the orchards of Vanaheim, planting alongside her sisters.

Loki opened his eyes, sure that she would be a step away, but he found another sight: his father's warm smile.

"When you miss her, remember that if you hold something dear to her, you can find her wherever she is. That is true about all souls. This is the secret of the universe; this is the knowledge that the wisest beings of power carry: it is _all_ connected."

He can never settle if it was true that Odin reached down and plucked him into a bear hug, but he still smelled chamomile when he walked into the ghosts of those steps on that balcony of Asgard. He cannot remember why he never told Mother why he was always a step ahead of her after Odin's first and last lesson.

" _And the Christmas bells that ring there  
_ _Are the clanging chimes of doom.  
_ _Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!  
_ _And there won't be snow in—"_

Africa.

His mechanical body rises from the blood and ashes. His ruby eyes peer at the jacket strewn atop the steel cabinet whose upper half did not burn.

He flies over the collapsed, singed shingles to tear it down. The ring Jane never saw falls out of the pocket followed by a handful of handwritten, unfinished somethings in Thor's scribbles.

Loki breathes.  
Africa awaits.

* * *

 _Published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com.  
Thanks to RavenReux for being my second pair of eyes throughout._


	19. I Have Dreams (D5)

"I HAVE DREAMS. Sometimes they are so real I think I'm crossing into a part of reality."

Loki's maniacal eyes stop on the book Thor holds dead shut to his side, but his hand decides to find Thor's knee and holds on as he falls away.

"I am in snow. Black snow with putrefied blood and an army of dry bones—centuries old. And I hear her stomping through the battlefield.

"She is always screaming without her mouth moving. It is like...I don't know...her twisted song, yet when she sees me, it stops. She reaches down to me and always whispers something I can never understand, nor remember.

"Thor, she looks—" Loki swallows the burning knot in his throat "—empty eye sockets, patchwork, blistering blue skin, torn off lips, teeth dripping the colour of blood... And so I run a while away only to slam into a cage I cannot see. I yell for someone to help me escape; behind my shoulder she's stomping towards me again, saying those words."

Loki rubs his aching eyes. He looks as if he just aged by a millennium, more so the moment his control slips and furious tears break free. "I want it to stop. No, I _need_ it to stop. It's driving me _mad_." For the first time since Thor stepped into his room, Loki meets his gaze. "Madame Helena wants to know why I do not sleep. I'll tell you why: with each nightmare, it's harder to comprehend that I have to wake up; it's harder to understand that I _am_ dreaming. Come but one night and..."

"You won't wake up," Thor finishes for him. He does not know what else to say or do.

In the moments it takes for Loki to stop his tears, Thor gathers wits enough to speak.

"I do not know what to make of your nightmares, but whatever you have interpreted them as, you should always remember that you are Odinson, Friggason, and my little brother. We are your one reality." And he takes Loki into a hug that for once works. He feels his little brother relaxing against his homey warmth. "You should tell Father and Mother too. They could work with Helena to make you tonics."

Loki stiffens at the afterthought. What he did not share were the parts of his nightmares where Frigga and Odin are on the other side of his invisible cage. They stand together, Odin reinforcing the strength of the bars and Frigga ready with her sword.

* * *

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	20. Yes, His Tongue Slips (D5)

YES, HIS TONGUE SLIPS, for there is nowhere he can hide. No, not from the Allmother. He knows that much is true even after the years of his fall forced him to master the art of hiding.

And so, in the midst of her deepest, desperate anger, Loki finds his lips and tongue working and uttering incomprehensible apologies as he tries his honest best to squirm away from her.

She's terrifying; how she can expose every layer of his soul and rip the synthetic ones off.

He needs damage control _now_. That the mother knows. She grips his tattered blazer and pulls until she closes the space between them.

Here there be no room for escape. His hands can't push her away because of the chains trapped between them, biting into both. His knees can't kick because there's not enough leverage. But just to snap the last wire of control inside him, she asks: "Who are you, Loki?"

 _Your son._ He knows his eyes say it, they being the sincerest part of him, but his lips spill different truths:

"Laufeyson. Lie-Smith. Monster. Mayhem."

" _No_ ," she booms, "Know who you are."

He knows by the slight softening of her grip that his eyes shout it. Their toxic ooze drips to his lips: "Your s— _st_ olen relic. Thorn. Enemy."

Frigga's lips draw into a thin line. She shakes him. "Stop fighting me, boy! For Helena's sake if not mine."

He keeps talking so his eyes would stop saying what he needs to say— "Disgrace. Curse. Killer. J–Jotunn,"—but they end up overflowing with the pain of unspoken truth anyways.

The Allmother's face boils. She curses and yanks his chains after her enormous stampede. Loki comes close to stumbling many times as her strides devour the guest halls.

He hides his face behind the cover of his hair when they pass the guards of the royal hall, but Frigga does not pay them any attention. She roars at the top of her lungs, cursing the Norns and all the entities of Yggdrasil, but with every word her voice cracks.

From the uneven stomps to her smashing through Odin's doors to her demolishing Loki and his chains to the ground…

"Odin, hear me speak!"

The Allfather rises from his writing desk. His one eye takes in Loki on the floor and Frigga sobbing, her agony covered by feral anger.

"The criminal is yours. I don't want to see or hear of him under any circumstances. You hear me?" Loki bites his lips. "Damn your trial and lock him up, strip him of his skin, tear his senses away; whatever pleases your _holy_ wrath. Good day," she spits, and twirls on her heel and marches out of the room leaving a gust of wind that sends Odin's papers flying.

A mother's pain.  
It is an unapologetically bitter beating by words.  
It is no less than Odin expected.

His eye flicks towards Loki. He pretends to not see the boy (that looks like a shadow melting into the carpet) trying to wipe his eyes despite the cold chains.

"Perhaps now you will understand," he says as he sets his signet down, which makes the boy's shoulders straighten and stiffen and his eyes transfix on the carpet floor. "Would you have words for yourself?"

Loki's tear stains look like streaks of blood with the colour that pushes through his gaunt cheeks. His eyes shine as wild as they were on Midgard. They nail him, unwavering, behind unkempt curtains of black.

"Go to Hel."

* * *

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	21. Jane Likes to Believe (D5)

JANE LIKES TO BELIEVE that is what happened. That she, a widow by heart, tore him apart until she uncovered ruby bones and veins of Styx.

Yes, she sleeps best when she imagines the life draining out of his eyes before sleep takes her to her gory paradise. When she cannot, all she has to do is grab a pillow and rehearse how she's going to trap him underneath her, how she's going to smother the pillow over his haggard face, think up how to combat all the defence he might put up before he ends forever.

And the life that fills her when she imagines sinking a blade into his chest, slowly so he can feel it slice through every cell, so he can envision how it's penetrating into each chamber of his heart, so he can experience death in all its perfect pain and pressure... The fantasies make her toes crinkle.

Feverish impatience for that day sent her through the streets of New York the other night in search of a man with black hair like his. She still tastes the iron stains on her fingers, remembers the scorched feel of rope burn against immaculate skin.

He lived.  
Misfortunate him.

Jane Foster, shut-in ex-scientist, falls back onto her couch and flips open her laptop. Her twig finger drags across the smooth mousepad to reopen the Chrome tab. Her bloodshot eyes shoot across the email for the umpteenth time:

" _Ms. Foster,_

 _Linked below is the surveillance you requested. Please endorse the check to the Odinson Fund as discussed._

 _You will be viewing the video from our encrypted server. DO NOT_ _attempt to download the video unless you're up to a charge of treason via S.H.I.E.L.D. Our relationship with Africa is still fragile post Wakanda._

 _Remember that we are your friends that have rules. We let you step on_ some _, but not all._

 _Sincerely,  
_ _M. Hill"_

Jane feels the frizz of a cackle in the making climb up her stony chest, but instead of indulging it she drains the rest of the vodka swashing inside the tinted champagne bottle in her grasp in three giant swallows.

It has been one year, five months, two weeks, and four days, but she finally found him. She follows the link to the grainy clip of the devil waiting in a small boarding line. He carries nothing but a sagging shoulder bag as he walks past the ticket checker.

It took Ethiopia's team one year, five months, two weeks, and three days to realize the fingerprint he left was Asgardian in disguise, which detonated a quiet panic. It took Agent Hill fifteen seconds to pinpoint the reason of the panic to Combolcha Airport.

Jane's sinking, scarred eyes flick up to the wall before her where a grandfather clock used to tick. Instead, a mammoth 13 tips its hat to her.

June 13, 2018.  
How she loved torching that tattoo into the bones of her abode.

" _P.S. your ticket to Ethiopia is attached as well. Your plane leaves in 32 hours. Good luck."_

She taps against the plastic metal of her 10-year-old Dell.

"You better run, kid." Her flaky nails tap to the sound of marching horse hooves and pounding heartbeats. Their drumming quickens. Faster, faster, faster: "You'd better hide."

* * *

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	22. There Are Three (D5)

THERE ARE THREE pairs of footprints along the seashore. Loki notices.

"Lady Vedette, forgive me for pestering but where exactly are we?"

The magnificent creature sways to a stop. She rings her basket in the fold of an arm and turns. Her voice is as crisp as the faint breeze that's blowing, and as gentle as the waters lapping at the shore.

"We have both found ourselves in a place for the lost. There is no name for it; neither can one seek it out." She rubs her chin as she stares over his shoulder. "Sometimes the lost know more than they believe." Her shifting lavender irises flick from the horizon to the footsteps, but she says nothing more and walks ahead.

Loki follows in an instant. "But how do we know which one of us is lost?"

"That is the misfortune of this place. One of us must suffer the pains of truth before we find ourselves."

"And the other?"

Her hair of pearls clank in union with her slightly quickening steps. "They must be the truth sooner or later."

From a side glance Vedette notes Loki worrying his lips, peeking towards the mysterious footprints, so she wraps her fingers around his. A rush of colour blossoms on his cheeks.

"You should never fear, Loki. I have been here long. The answers will come in but a matter of time."

* * *

 _End of Dossier Five. To be continued...  
_


End file.
